14 DAY TRIAL // Sony Pictures has so far refused to answer criticism coming from North Korea officials regarding the upcoming movie “The Interview” starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, but our guess is that it won’t be able to put it off for much longer: North Korea has filed an official complaint against the film with the United Nations.
A trailer for it is embedded below, in case you missed it upon release.
“The Interview” is a comedy that sees Franco and Rogen play two television people (Franco is a big-shot talk show host, while Rogen is his producer) who somehow score an interview with Kim Jong-Un. However, right before they set off for North Korea, they’re intercepted by the CIA and, while they’re clearly the last persons anyone would want to handle any kind of mission, they’re tasked with the assassination of the dictator.
Of the many things said about Jong-Un, that he has a healthy sense of humor isn’t one. So, ever since the trailer got out, his people have been trying to put pressure on the movie studio not to release the film because it would be nothing short of an act of war.
However, until now, this pressure has been exercised in the media, not on the official channels.
The Hollywood Reporter informs that North Korea’s UN Ambassador Ja Song Nam has filed a complaint with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in which he accuses the United States of “sponsoring terrorism and committing an act of war” by the mere fact that the US government isn’t stepping in to ban the film.
“To allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war,” the complaint reads.
“The United States authorities should take immediate and appropriate actions to ban the production and distribution of the aforementioned film; otherwise, it will be fully responsible for encouraging and sponsoring terrorism,” the letter further says.
Despite this complaint and the very direct threat issued at the end of June, when another official told the media that the US government should expect “a merciless counter-measure [to] be taken” if the movie was released in theaters, Sony Pictures is still not addressing the matter.
The only person to say anything about this was one of the leading men, Seth Rogen, who found it hilarious that Kim Jong-Un, though so deeply offended by the premise of the story and the trailer he’d seen, was still planning to see the full film.
